


Snackrifice

by NaomiJameston



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:33:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27644864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NaomiJameston/pseuds/NaomiJameston
Summary: When Rose Snape is given the opportunity to make a gingerbread house with her classmates, she takes it.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Severus Snape
Comments: 21
Kudos: 79
Collections: Hearts and Cauldrons - Daily Prompts!, Hearts and Cauldrons Discord Members





	Snackrifice

**Author's Note:**

> So many thanks to many, many people:
> 
> First, my incredible betas: Turtle_Wexler and MizzAdamz, without whom this story would have floundered and died.
> 
> Secondly, to Moonstone281 for both the prompt and the title. 
> 
> And finally, to every member of the Hearts&Cauldrons discord server. I love you all!

“Thank you for coming so quickly, Mrs. Snape,” the teacher said. She held open the door to the classroom and motioned Hermione inside with a furtive glance, closing the door behind her and dropping the blinds. The room was dark and almost gloomy, in sharp contrast to the cheerful posters and stapled smiling suns. The ABCs danced in a meadow while the Big Bad Wolf watched. Fairy tale creatures of all kinds cavorted and played in bright murals.

Tiny tables and smaller chairs formed a ring in the middle and in one chair sat a dark little girl. Her black hair fell limply around her ears and she hung her head so low that her oversize nose almost touched the table. 

“What’s wrong?” Hermione asked. She knelt next to the girl, who threw herself into Hermione’s arms. “What happened?”

“Mrs. Snape,” the teacher said as she sat at her desk. “Your family is new to this area and this school and as such we do not expect you to understand the culture we have here as yet. However, Rose is very well aware of the rules within and without this classroom.”

“Has she broken one?”

The teacher hesitated, licked her lips, and Hermione could almost read the thoughts going across her face. She’d seen it plenty of times before. They were too unusual, too strange, too weird to be fully accepted anywhere. This wasn’t the first time a teacher had pulled her into the classroom to tell her that-

“We were making gingerbread houses today,” the teacher finally said. She twisted a long strand of pearls between her fingers and bit her lip. Though she was young and pretty, something about her brought Dolores Umbridge to mind. Maybe it was her barely hidden sneer. Or perhaps the compulsory joy. Or-

“I thought it would be a fun group project, so I split the class into groups of four or five, letting the kids choose their own groups. Not as a popularity contest!” she exclaimed with mock horror, holding her hands out in denial. “Rose is wonderfully popular so I didn’t have any concerns that she’d be left out or anything!”

“That’s… good?” Hermione hedged. In her arms, Rose curled even tighter, her tiny shoulders shaking. Hermione patted her back absently. 

“And I let those groups choose their own leader who would design the gingerbread house. They were supposed to make a scene from a fairy tale or a story or their own imagination. 'What is this gingerbread family like? What do they like to do?' Things like that.” The teacher returned to twisting her pearls and biting her lip. “Rose’s group… well, they chose her as leader.”

“All right?” Hermione hugged Rose tightly as her little body shook harder. “Is her being the leader a problem? I thought you said she is popular?”

“No, no! She is wonderfully friendly and the children all love her. The problem is…” The teacher tugged on her cardigan with a sigh. “Rose, why don’t you bring your gingerbread house over so we can show it to your mum?”

Rose stood quietly with a sniff and crossed the classroom, keeping her head down the entire time. She stepped into a back room, shuffled around for a few moments, then returned, carrying an open box. She set it down next to her teacher and returned to her seat to lean into her mother’s side. Her tremors had gotten worse and she sniffed every few seconds. Hermione looked from her to the box to the teacher and back in alarm.

“Good lord, what is the problem?”

“This, Mrs. Snape. This is the problem.” And the teacher lifted the gingerbread house from the box.

Hermione's first thought was that it was a surprisingly well-constructed house, given the average age of the children constructing it. Her second thought was that she was going to have to do some clever truth wrangling to get them both out of this mess.

Her third thought was, ‘Oh. Dear. Merlin.’

She cleared her throat. “Well, it’s… erm. It’s very…”

“It started out as a regular gingerbread house. I don’t know what happened.” The teacher sniffed and clutched her pearls as she turned suddenly sharp eyes on Rose. “All I know is that the other children looked to your daughter to lead them and she… What even  _ is _ this, Mrs. Snape?”

Hermione tried to speak but each time the words formed, hysterical laughter followed them. She swallowed with difficulty.

“I am… I’m not sure.”

“This  _ looks _ like a ritualistic sacrifice. Cult activity. Satanic.  _ Evil _ .” The teacher sneered the last word and twisted her pearls even tighter. Hermione stared at her blankly. It wasn’t possible for Umbridge to have been reborn given that she hadn’t been deceased yet, so this woman, this- she flicked a glance to the nameplate done up in gold and flowers on the desk- Mrs. Johnson must have been a relative. Umbridge was only halfblood, after all. Surely she had Muggle relatives and it wouldn’t be out of the question for Mrs. Johnson to be one of them-

“Mrs. Snape?”

Hermione shook herself. “I am honestly speechless. I’m not sure what you want me to say.”

“They were supposed to recreate a fairy tale, Mrs. Snape! A story-”

“Or something from their own imagination, yes?” Hermione gestured to the scene in question, barely holding back a snicker. She shouldn't laugh, she knew. It was a serious problem. But the tableau was so ridiculous as to be laughable. An oversize gingerbread man stood in the back as though a deified statue, with an altar directly in front. Various gummy bears stood around said altar with three unfortunate bears prone on top. “This is certainly imaginative and it seems to me that it follows the rules as you’ve explained them.”

Mrs. Johnson gritted her teeth and hissed between them. “You  _ know _ this isn’t what I meant.”

“But it  _ is _ within the parameters you set.” Hermione stood and set the gingerbread cult scene back into its box. “I certainly hope you will give all of the children involved full points for the assignment, Mrs. Johnson. That level of creativity and group effort ought to be rewarded. Four year 2 students completing an ambitious project like this? They deserve praise rather than concern.”

“Mrs. Snape-”

But Hermione hoisted the box to her hip and held out a hand for Rose, who took it without hesitation. Her shoulders still shook and her hair still hung limp around her face, and she very, very carefully kept her eyes on the floor.

“No, no, it’s all right,” Hermione said with a cheerful smile. “We’ll be happy to take Rose’s project home with us. And I’ll be sure to call the head teacher praising your efforts in encouraging teamwork and imagination. Thank you, Mrs. Johnson! Have a wonderful weekend.”

Hermione ushered Rose through the door and let it swing closed behind her, cutting her off from Mrs. Johnson’s glare. Neither Hermione nor Rose spoke as they walked through the hallways and out the front door. The bright afternoon sun was almost blinding after the dim stuffiness of the classroom and Hermione took a deep breath. Beside her, Rose did the same.

“You know,” Hermione said casually, “I can tell the difference between you crying and holding back a laugh.”

“I know,” Rose said with a triumphant grin as she flipped her hair off her face. She rolled her eyes back at the school. “But  _ she _ can’t and I thought it might help my chances if she thought I was sorry.”

“Are you?”

Rose paused to consider before opening the door to Hermione’s car. “Does it really matter? They’re Muggles.”

Hermione sighed. “We’re not better than them, Rose. Just because-”

“I know, Mum. I know. Just because we have magic doesn’t mean we’re all powerful or omniscient,” Rose parroted, rolling her eyes dramatically. “But they’re so  _ boring _ ! They never talk about anything fun. And I can’t tell them  _ anything _ ! I can’t wait to get to Hogwarts so I can-”

“You’re a long way off from that, miss, and you’ll never go if you can’t control yourself,” Hermione said quietly as she backed out of the parking space expertly. Mrs. Johnson stood just outside the front door watching them go, and Hermione waved serenely at her.

Rose narrowed her eyes at her mother’s rearview mirror.

“Dad won’t let you hold me back from Hogwarts, Mum. He’s talked about the things we’ll do together once-”

“Try me, Rose.” Hermione didn’t bother looking at the mirror, already knowing the expression on her daughter’s face. Fury mixed with hurt, then slowly dawning horror, then suspicion.

“...Would you?” she asked after several long moments.

“I would prefer to let you go to Hogwarts, and I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful time there. But if you cannot learn to control your impulses, to learn- No, stop.” Rose had leaned forward to argue but flopped back to glare out the window. Hermione continued, “If you cannot learn to control yourself, Rose, it will be too dangerous to let you learn any real magic.”

“I didn’t hurt anyone,” Rose pouted.

“ _ This time _ ,” Hermione replied. “But what about when someone annoys you? Or says that magic isn’t real? What then? Can you honestly tell me that you wouldn’t use what your father and I have already taught you to teach them a lesson?”

Rose glared at Hermione in her mirror for a moment, then slowly her anger faded away to be replaced with doubt. A memory niggled in her mind, of a time when her friend Amy had said something mean- she couldn’t even remember now what it was- and Rose had felt so mad. She’d wanted to hurt something. And magic had gathered at her fingertips and when she’d pushed Amy, the blonde girl had gone flying. 

She shuddered, her face pale. “No, Mummy. I’ll never do that again.”

Hermione’s eyes softened. “I know you won’t, Rosie. I trust you.”

Rose looked up, her eyes overflowing with tears. “You do?”

“Without hesitation, my love.” Hermione’s own eyes felt suspiciously wet and she blinked rapidly. “That’s not to say that I’m not angry at you, of course. And we  _ will _ be talking to your father when he returns home this evening.”

Rose winced but nodded with resignation. Hermione swallowed back the lecture rising in her throat- that this was the fourth school they’d gone through, that Rose knew better, and a thousand other little things. But it wouldn’t do any good now. Rose didn’t need that and Severus, bless him, was sure to lay a heavy hand on her heart tonight.

Hermione sighed, then laughed.

“And besides, who else would have been clever enough to come up with  _ and _ convince a bunch of their fellows to make a sacrificial scene right under their teacher’s nose?”

Rose snickered. “It wasn’t entirely my idea.”

“No?” Hermione asked with a raised eyebrow. 

“There was a boy who helped a lot. Theo Barclay.” She shrugged. “He’s cool, I guess.”

Hermione’s eyebrows came together. “Barclay? Theophanes Barclay?”

“No, that’s his dad, I think. He’s Theodorus.”

“Huh. Well how about that,” Hermione mused. Rose’s eyes narrowed.

“You know something.”

“Hand me some of that gingerbread, will you?”

“Mum.”

“Maybe some of the pentagram licorice too, if you please? I’m suddenly famished.”

“Mum!”

Rose’s aggrieved cry and Hermione’s laugh carried from the car as she turned toward home.


End file.
